Easily considered one of the most important and influential artists of all time, Leonardo Da Vinci has fascinated historians and artists alike with his art, inventions, and writing, and has museums throughout Italy and Europe dedicated entirely to his work. It comes as no surprise, then, that the discovery of a previously unknown Da Vinci sketch brought about much excitement in the 1990s. Found among drawings of 17th-century printmaker Stefano della Bella, the sketch presented a new opportunity to study the great master and was considered, of course, to be priceless.
The sketch depicted Orpheus as he was attacked by the furies, it was done for the the production of Orpheus by playwright Poliziano, a contemporary of Da Vinci. Unfortunately, we’ll never get to see it. Although special measures are usually taken to preserve such pieces, the team in charge of restoring the newly discovered sketch acted a bit too hastily in their excitement. In an attempt to clean the sketch the team of restorers treated it with a solution of alcohol and water, which unfortunately dissolved the ink. A better approach, as scholars noted, would have been to test the ink for solubility before treating the entire sketch, but alas. The sketch is currently being preserved in the hopes that imaging technology will one day be able to bring it back to life.
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